Shadow's keeper
by Akatsuki's shadow
Summary: Airi has had bad luck all her life, she lost her parents to death and her brother left the clan, but theres still a chance to change it all when she happens upon the group of rogues shes been looking for.
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

A young teenage girl sat in a cave blood soaking from her shoulder and a black seal evident on her shoulder as well. She was just in fishnet and bandages around her stomach, chest, most of her shoulders except the seal, and parts of her legs. She looked at a strange cat that was beside her yet she wasn't scared of it nor did she love it beyond measure.  
"Hukitsu you have to go, you are hers not mine. I'm sure you'll be free again soon…." she spoke to it kindly yet she kind of didn't like that cat with its glowing green eyes.  
It gave a small nod like it knew what she was saying, but its ears pricked up and it turned its head sharply to the entrance of the cave. This made Airi look to, knowing that Hukitsu was known to have good tracking skills along with other senses. Out in the far off sand dunes of the desert were two figures moving rather slowly.  
"Hukitsu, do they have black on with red clouds??" Airi asked, hoping the ocelot would answer her instead of making her find out on her own.  
It gave a swift almost mistakable nod; it could have been a twitch, that is, if Airi hadn't known the cat would have done that to make her mad.  
"Fine, I get it, but you need to go now. Thank you for the 'help' though it was appreciative." Airi finally sighed, doing the hand sign for dragon; the cat disappeared in a poof of smoke, as Airi pulled on her shirt on over her fishnet, then shoved her cloak and other items in her small bag. She swung that over her head and settled it on to her shoulder so that it wouldn't hurt her while she was running, along with her sword at her side and her chained scythe that was attached to her belt loop at the moment.  
Finally after wasting a good five minutes making sure she had everything she ran out into the harsh desert running to the spot where she had seen the two figures.  
They were seemed to have vanished now because Airi couldn't see them anywhere, even with the shadows that she had control over. She still looked around wildly to find the two, knowing that she wasn't going to have another chance that easily, she NEEDED to find them, if Hukitsu was indeed right about them having black cloaks on with red clouds.  
She almost regretted sealing the cat away now, seeing as it would be helpful in tracking the two down, but she needed to do this on her own and she didn't want to unseal HER just to get to the summoning that could refuse to help.  
Just then she felt a cool breeze coming from behind her, she knew that it could only be caused by a large shadow, seeing as she had grown up in this desert and it was almost always burning worse than anything. She looked straight up to see a giant bird flying above her, but from the faint smell it was giving off, it wasn't a normal bird it was maybe stone or something similar, but she could see black cloth flaring in and out of her vision and every so often she would see a red cloud on it.  
She had found who she was looking for, now the problem was getting their attention or in someway coming in contact with them so that she could speak with them, but at the moment all she could do was run beside it and keep up with it.

She had been running beside and under it for about an hour, and it still didn't really look like it was going to land anywhere nearby and she could see a cliff beginning to take form in front of her.  
A plan was forming in her head, if she could get up the cliff's face at the right moment, and the bird stayed at the same height the whole time then she might have a chance at jumping on to the bird's back. She began to think on how to achieve this the best way without increasing the chances of them killing her.  
She knew a lot about the organization these two were obviously apart of, they are rogues of their villages and most of them would kill without hesitation. They have all different styles of fighting ranging from Genjutsu that she knew was mostly used by the serial killer Itachi Uchiha, to special kekki genkai, such as Deidara who used to be apart of the village hidden in rocks, who used the mouths on his hands to create special bombs  
And there were a few special cases in this group; there was Sasori of the red sand who used puppets to do his main attacking along with poisons. Of course the puppet master was Airi's very own brother, and the one she wanted to find more than anything when he left the village, and left her in the clutches of her clan. She, unlike most others who had relatives destroy something dear to them, didn't hate her brother, instead she wanted to find him so she could learn from him and show him how much she got better at her style of fighting, which was very similar to her brother's except she used more animal puppets and she also used her chakra strings as weapons as well, but much like her brother, she learned about many poisons, and she was also a rogue ninja now.  
She began to realize that the bird was beginning a decent now, and broke from her thoughts, now realizing that her plan wouldn't work now, if they were landing, but she still ad a chance of talking with them if she could catch up with them when they landed. With that in mind, she sped up so that she could easily meet up with them when they landed, knowing that if she didn't she would have a long time to wait for another chance, and in that wait the anbu might attack her or try, she knew she was already in the bingo book with her brother and the rest of the rogues, and there were always bounty hunters to watch out for, they would do anything to get the money.

Airi looked up at the bird again, she almost saw one of the people on the bird look down at her, but she couldn't tell the straw hat was in the way, but she thought she could see blond locks of hair, maybe or the sun was affecting her eyesight she guessed. Unfortunately before she noticed anything was happening a spider fell from the bird and it landed right in front of her, her eyes widened as she noticed that it was clay. She quickly dashed to the side hoping to avoid the bomb, which she just managed to do. She now knew one of the people she was dealing with, one of the two on the bird was Deidara, this made her sigh in annoyance this meant that she had to fight against another pyro….that is if it got that far, but by the looks of it that would be exactly what she would have to deal with.  
She dodged every spider bomb that he dropped, missing them all, but sometimes just barely, and it was really tiring her out. She took her eyes off the sky for a few moments and slowed down to hopefully get so air into her lungs, which felt like they were on fire.  
At that exact moment a clay bird landed beside her, but Airi had her eyes closed so she didn't see it, that is until it went off, burning her just a bit, she looked up to see a barrier of shadows, and she sighed in relief.  
"That could have ended bad…..dang it, I should have known better than to let my guard slip, even if I was trying to breath." she said thanking her lucky stars and the shadows that were her friends, and protection from time to time.  
Unfortunately Deidara had seen her near death experience and was mad that he didn't succeed in killing her, Airi could almost see him exchanging words with the other person on the bird, but she took her eyes off him again, still trying to get breath to her lungs yet it seemed to refuse her air, and she knew that the poisons in her system were mixing badly again. She began to curse, this was the worst timing ever.  
"What's the matter, un? Are you all tired out now?" She heard a voice call in her ear. She looked up to see a face she had only seen before in the bingo book. "I don't know if I want to kill you just yet, but I want to congratulate you on escaping my 'art', un"  
"So what you want to torture me before you finish the job? Go ahead and try, if I wasn't having my own problems right this moment you wouldn't have even been able to get this close to me…." she said her breathing was now ragged.  
"Is that so, un? How about we give that thought a try, yeah."  
"How do you presume to do that?? This could take months to get under control again; it's not easy to fix a problem that's this extensive."  
"What exactly are you talking about, un?"  
"Fine since I guess there's a chance of you killing me here before I can get to my brother….I have poisons throughout my system and they have counter acted badly, and its not exactly the best thing to feel…"  
"Hmmm, I think I know someone who might be able to help you with that, yeah. He has an advanced knowledge of poisons, un."  
"I don't think whoever you are talking about can help this….No one has ever done this before not in there own system, not with so many different types." She slipped something into her mouth that went unseen by Deidara. She straightened up and looked him in the eyes, his icy blue to her bloody red ones.  
"I'm fine, now do you want something?" she finally said, after feeling the effects of the plasma pill she had slipped in her mouth earlier, it was numbing the poisons effects.  
"Let's see how well you actually can keep your own up against an s-rank ninja, un."  
"Fine by me, I'd like to see how your style will work against mine." she said getting into a fighting stance.  
"Deidara, what do you think you are doing? You know I HATE having to wait; also we have to get back to Leader-Sama." A gruff voice called from behind Airi, she twisted sideways so that she could see who was talking, like Deidara the person was wearing a straw hat, but Airi could see dark withered skin that looked almost unreal and a mask over its mouth, making everything it said even more muffled and gruff sounding.  
"Ah, Sasori-Danna, come on, just this one, I don't think she'll even last that long."  
Airi's eyes went wide suddenly. "See, she already lost that confidence she had second ago, yeah."  
"S…Sasori?! Nii-chan?"  
"What did you say, girl?" Sasori said turning to her now.  
A spark of recognition passed over Airi's eyes, how could she have forgotten?  
What was before was her brother's puppet Hiroku, one of Sasori's most used ones, when he was still at the clan house, it was the only one he had that he could control from the inside.  
"Is that really Sasori? I mean I see a puppet that looks like Hiroku, but is Nii-chan inside?"  
"Girl, why do you keep calling me 'Nii-chan'? I only have had one sister, and she died in the fire at my clan house about a year ago…" He said angrily.  
"Because she didn't die, your little sister is still alive."  
"How do you I had a younger sister, I only remember telling you I had A sister."  
"I know because I AM her, I am Airi I also call myself Akasuna no Airi, as I know my brother calls himself similarly, but even if I wasn't I have been hoping for this chance, I have found members of the organization known as Akatsuki, and I was hoping that I would take the chance of asking to join. I am not as weak as I look, and I have some useful abilities that I would gladly give to the Akatsuki."  
"Sasori, what do we do? Do we take her or kill her here?" Deidara asked his partner.  
"I wouldn't if I were you…I know a lot about you two and your style of fighting more than the villages do. I know more of Sasori because…well, I lived with him for a few year, and Deidara I have worked with dispatching bombs quickly and easily, so I don't think it would be to hard to try a few times against yours, I would get it eventually. Plus why give up a chance of having someone who controls shadows and use them at her wish and has a split half that the few who know of are scared to death about or already dead in their grave."  
Deidara raised an eyebrow wondering what she could possibly mean, but she remained silent after that.  
"So Sasori-Danna, do we take her, un?"  
"I suppose that we should take her to Leader-Sama at the least, seeing as she seems to have some useful skills. But Airi, remember that if Leader-Sama doesn't want you in the organization, you will be killed, by whoever, he chooses, and none of us will go against his orders."  
"Yes, Nii-chan."  
Deidara and Sasori jumped back up onto the bird's back, followed by Airi.  
"This is the only chance we will give you, un. Are you sure you want to go, yeah?" Deidara asked.  
"I'm not giving in that easily, I'm going and I will prove that I have what it take to get in."

Airi was getting bored of this, they had been on the clay bird nonstop, and she was bored, even though she was in the company of two s-rank criminals. She couldn't help but let out a sigh of boredom, and nothing seemed to be helping, so she decided to risk being killed and started twisting her shadows into shapes of flowers and twirled them so that they were hanging off of Hiroku's metallic tail. Deidara was the first to notice it and he let out a chuckle but other than that he remained silent, allowing her to get away with it for the moment. He began to make movements with his hands that went unnoticed by Sasori, at least she thought so, it took her a second to realize that he was using sign language, and begun to sign back, having learned a small bit from Jounin that went with her on missions, it was a silent means of communicating, so it was perfect on spying missions.  
'Sign that again, I didn't get that.' she signed.  
'I was saying that I wouldn't leave that there, Sasori wouldn't appreciate going through the base without knowing its there, trust me you might just be killed for it'  
'Aww, but its funny, and I'm so bored.'  
'If you want to be killed before we even get to Leader then leave it but I wouldn't trust me, bad idea.'  
'Pouting now.'  
'Why exactly did you sign that?'  
'Because I wanted to, you got a problem with that?'  
'Rolling eyes now, so how did you become a rogue ninja, I can see your headband that looks like it was supposed to be hidden.'  
'Dang, um, well….fine, I used my cousin's corpse to get to the head of our clan and poisoned him, then set up bombs here and there, set up tons of traps, and jammed the doors and all other openings and left them to burn, that's all it short terms, but what is it like in the Akatsuki base?'  
'I figured you'd be asking that soon enough…it's not too special, it's in Amegakure, the village hidden in the rain. No one would really know it was there and the leader is almost treated like a god. But it's a good place, although we are rarely there for long.'  
All Airi did was nod, her eyes closed and her breathing relaxed, Deidara shrugged, she must have been tired form running after his bird, was the only thought he had, but she was far from asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

"Are we there yet?!" Airi complained, bored from the hours of riding the clay bird, she was tempted to stab her kunai into it just to relieve her boredom but she knew better than to do that.  
If she caused enough of damage to it, it would explode right under her feet, causing her to get rather injured and that might make Deidara or her brother to kill her out of annoyance, which would ruin her second goal of getting into the Akatsuki. So she 'held her kunai', and tried to not lose control of the temptation.  
"Yep, un. We are almost there, and it's going to start raining soon, but if you get in you better not have too much of a problem with it otherwise your complaining will aggravate everyone. This is your last chance to of getting out and still having a chance to live. If Leader decides to kill you, you are going to die, no doubt about it you would have a better chance of living by leaving now, yeah."  
"I already told you I'm not leaving, I've made it this far and I'm not one to back out for anything…ANYTHING. I have gone through worse than I think any of you guys can put me through." she said in almost a menacing way, she may be in the presence of two s-rank criminals but she wasn't going to give them the pleasure of seeing her backing down so submissively.  
"Whatever, your choice, this is your last chance, but if you deny it then that'll be your problem later, un." He said, and she could feel the bird slowly dive into a descent. Right before it officially touched the ground, it burst into smoke, sending the three falling through the air, but none of them seemed to be bothered by it to much. Airi landed on her feet almost on her knees, her hand on the ground to keep her more stable, to keep her from falling over, but Sasori and Deidara landed perfectly on their feet as if it were nothing, making Airi wonder haw many times they've ridden these clay birds. She brought herself back up into a standing position, her balance back for the moment; she could feel the presence of Deidara and Sasori beside her, guiding her into a large yet plain building, it looked similar to what Deidara had explained to her, so she guessed this was the Akatsuki's base. No matter where she followed Sasori and Deidara, there was a feeling of two pairs of eyes following her one sinister, yet the other was….well she couldn't quite say what the other one felt like, it seemed more curious and a bit less alert than the other seemed, almost like it didn't care what she did.  
Sasori and Deidara finally stopped in front of a large pair of doubled doors; Deidara motioned for her to knock on the door, when she looked back with a confused expression written on her face. She thought she could hear someone chuckling, but she just guessed that her nerves were getting to her mind.  
She knocked hesitantly yet rather loud, louder than she had expected that she was knocking.  
She could hear someone inside allowing her entrance, she slowly opened the door and walked in, not realizing Sasori and Deidara who walked in behind her but they stayed at the back wall waiting there until they were called upon.  
"Who are you, and why are you here?" A dark mysterious voice called out from the darkness.  
"I am Airi of Suna; I was hoping that you would allow me into the Akatsuki…that is if you think of me as worthy."  
"How did you come to Amegakure?"  
"I spotted a large bird flying across the desert of Suna and I had been trying to find at least one member of the Akatsuki so that I may ask to join, and I just happened to see the red clouds on their cloaks as it was moving in the wind, so I ran after it and after a while one of them started throwing bombs at me which I was only just able to dodge but he came down then wanted to see how his fighting style would work against mine, but Sasori came and I knew him immediately and told him who I was and how I wanted to join, which he said I had to come here and ask the leader first. So that's why I am here…." She told him, hoping that she hadn't told him too much or something that would affect her later.  
"And how do you know Sasori?"  
"He is my older brother, he left the clan before I did, and I wanted to find him, and I had learned that he had joined the Akatsuki, so that is one reason I wanted to join, so that I could be with my brother again, even if just a little bit."  
Hmm, and what can you do, that would help us?"  
"I can control the shadows at whim and I have been able to use them when it comes to spying, although I have never tried to find my brother, nor have I told the villages of my traits as I am telling you, also I have a split personality that the few who have survived her wrath are scared to death of just hearing her name and the other are already in their grave, I work similarly as my brother, using puppets and poisons but because of my split personality my poisons have become more largely known as the most deadly and quickest acting. Also I use more of my chakra strings as weapons, because they are accurate and no one notices them until it's too late."  
"I would like to see how good you are, see if you can keep up with a member of the Akatsuki as well as you say, if I see you as an unworthy member you will be killed on the spot."  
"Yes, sir." She said, for once adding sir to the end, just to stay on his good side.  
"You will go against Uchiha Itachi, I'm sure you know quite a bit on him, even though you are from another village?"  
"Yes, sir. I know of him, he was the Uchiha to kill the rest of his clan, he is almost and expert at Genjutsu, and his Sharigan surpasses any others that his relatives had, and he had done it prove his strength I do believe."  
"You are correct; now, I will have someone guide you down to the training grounds. Konan, come here." he ordered.  
She could hear someone almost silently walking through a door she just noticed at the side of the room, a woman walked out. She was wearing a similar cloak as the rest of the members Airi had seen, and she had short blue hair with a paper flower pinned in it.  
"Follow now." she had the same authority in her voice as 'leader' did.  
Airi silently followed, refusing to make a sound in case she irritated her, which would be bad for Airi.

They were down in the training grounds rather quickly and guessed that Konan didn't like wasting time, which kind of didn't help Airi, because right now a long walk might have settled her nervousness even just a little bit, because she was almost visibly shaking all over. She spotted someone with light sandy hair not to far away, and something about him reminded her of her old partner, she couldn't guess what, but it comforted her, thinking upon her old life she couldn't help but touch a single charm she had around her neck, it was in the form of a serpent like snake curled around a small dagger, yet it wasn't for use, even though it still had a sharp point to it. This was mainly all that remained of her past life, although she didn't kill her partner, she had left him in the village that they both ran away to, since he promised to help her get away form her clan, but he failed, and he didn't leave the village, not that she cold blame him the village wouldn't allow it anyways.  
She now looked around for her opponent, she now saw that the sandy haired teen was making slight hand signs that were just barely visible but she now noticed that he was talking to the one that she was going up against. She began to read his slight hand signs.  
'He is here, yet don't look straight into his eyes during this match, that is how most of his genjutsu work, but just doing that wont help…' was all she saw him sign and she nodded just barely and walked up to the two.  
"Uchiha Itachi, I presume…" she said looking at the black haired man in front of the teen who gave some tips to help her.  
"Yes…what do you want?"  
"I am supposed to fight against you."  
"It is Pein's orders, Itachi. This girl wishes to join and you know what she has to do to even be thought able to join." Konan said coming up behind her making Airi jump slightly, this made the teenage boy chuckle slightly and shake his head in pity.  
'Hmmm, so the one I talked to, his name is Pein? I'll have to remember that, I wonder why I haven't found him in the bingo books yet….' Airi thought to herself.  
"Hn…fine, seeing as I have no choice…" Itachi finally said his voice almost as low as a whisper.  
Airi found herself following him onto a large field; she could almost feel her nervousness creeping back but she pushed that away form her mind and looked at the one who seemed to think that she might be good enough to get through this enough to give her some hints. She could feel confidence sweeping back into her quickly, although she had no idea why, but she wasn't going to ask right now, she had the confidence to get through this test of skills.

"You ready Uchiha?" she asked as he glared at her with a deep intensity, for the moment she was going to go against the help she was given, she looked straight into the Uchiha's eyes, but she also added a slight genjutsu over her own, so that she wouldn't be affected by his genjutsu that he was sure to use. She noticed his eyes slowly bleeding into the blood red of his Mangekyo Sharingan, then when his eyes returned to hers his widened slightly, making her smirk a little bit. Her genjutsu made her eyes look like the reverse of his Sharingan, the Reverse Sharingan was rare, and she only knew of it because she had had a meeting with Ichibi also known and Shukaku, who had told her about because he had seen many Uchiha's in his lifetime, also she had seen Kyuubi who had known Uchiha Madara, between the two she had an accurate knowledge about the almost mythical Reverse Sharingan. Although it looked like it, her Reverse Sharingan was far from as powerful as the real thing, but it always put her enemies off guard, like it had done with the Uchiha in front of her, and she decided to use his moment of shock to her advantage. She whipped her chained scythe form her belt loop without a problem, it didn't get caught or anything, and swung it, making sure it was accurate but off target just a bit, Itachi snapped back into reality just in time, he dodged backwards but even though the blade seemed to miss he got a cut the went along his arm. If he hadn't moved he would probably have been dead on his feet.  
She could just barely see him beginning to make hand signs but his hands were moving so fast that she couldn't keep up nor figure out which jutsu he had just done the hand signs for, which put her at a disadvantage, making her a bit tense because she didn't know what it was nor where it would come at her. She let her scythe disappear into the light shadows that surrounded the training grounds. Then a thought formed in her mind, if she couldn't tell where his attack would come from, maybe she should make things just a bit more even, by basically getting the sense of sight out of the puzzle of winning this, she did the hand sign for dragon, serpent, and tiger. The field suddenly was obscured by shadows moving with a mind of their own. She took several minutes to dispel the genjutsu that was over her eyes, now she had to avoid staring into his eyes otherwise it could end her life. She didn't notice that there was black fire coming up behind her, it came in contact with her flesh, she bit back a scream of pain and used the surrounding shadows to douse the strange flames and put them out. She kneeled down and tore a strip of the bandages off and tied it securely around the burn, planning to deal with it later. Two red eyes appeared in front of her and she looked away hoping to avoid its gaze, she pulled a kunai out unnoticed, and she plunged it into any flesh that she could get it to dig into, the shadows not being kind to her either, her eyesight becoming blurred yet she refused to give up, she didn't want to lose her dream of being with her brother again.  
She touched a hidden switch in the hilt of the kunai and she could feel the poison beginning to drip form it now, although it wasn't her most dangerous, she had left that out of this match for the moment. The eyes caught her gaze now and now she found herself trapped onto a cross, the sky was a dark red and the landscape was black, memories went before her eyes, none of them good, and she knew that anything she saw Itachi could also probably see. She closed her eyes and pushed the memories from her eyes, trying hard to think of something else so that this invader of her thoughts and recollections wouldn't be able to learn more about her past than he already probably had. She could feel the landscape and the unnatural colored sky fade away but the affects of Itachi's Tsukuyomi were already there making her vision darken and slowly blur making it impossible to see then she finally went unconscious, and with her consciousness the shadows left the training ground.  
Her last thought was something along the lines of 'oh well I tried, but I guess I wasn't strong enough.'

Airi woke up in a bright light that Airi thought was almost blinding, and she closed her eyes slightly. She heard shuffling at the other side of the room and opened her eyes, seeing Deidara in a chair on the far wall along with the boy that she had 'talked' with.  
"Where am I?" she asked weakly, finally getting her eyesight used to the bright lights. Hearing her talk to them all of a sudden broke their silence, and made them both look up at her, amazed.  
"Welcome back to the realm of the living." the younger boy said.  
"Airi! You're ok?! You almost died, after that battle. You're in the clinic, you got a bit more damage than any of us thought that you would have gotten, where'd did all those scars come from?"  
"YOU SAW THOSE?!" she said alarmed now.  
"Not all of them, Konan had to help you get bandaged up for the most part, but we saw the ones on your legs and some around your stomach. What happened to you?"  
"Nothing really, I just had some problems in the past. Anyways, who are you, and why are you here, I mean in the clinic, we don't even know each other…not that I know Deidara much more…"  
"My name is Zenzuro, and Leader-Sama partnered us up."


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

She could feel herself getting lightheaded as time progressed, yet she still remained silent. His reply came to her a shock, had she actually been able to get into the Akatsuki? It didn't make any sense to her she had failed to defeat the Uchiha, why had she been allowed to live, why hadn't Itachi killed her there? She tried to get up out of the bed so that she could see the damage that was created by his repeated attacks that she was sure that he had done even when she was unconscious, she managed to get out of the bed but she didn't remain standing long, her legs gave out after several minutes, but from what she saw there wasn't any marks left, there were a few more bandages but that was it. She only remained conscious through her constant struggle against the heaviness of her eyelids, but as of right now she was losing.  
"Hey are you ok?" Zenzuro asked, kneeling beside her looking her in the eyes, she turned her head sharply breaking his gaze.  
"I'm fine, its nothing." she said quietly, so quiet that he almost didn't hear her.  
"Don't lie, you are injured still, its fine to say that you are injured or that you just don't feel good enough to talk, but don't right out lie when it's obvious. Otherwise you will always be bad at lying, but either way you shouldn't lie to your partner, otherwise you could drag them down. Sometimes you have to show them that you're weak for them to realize it." He instructed sharply his eyes burning into the back of her head.  
She heard him sigh and shuffle away. "Just because you are a rogue, you still need to trust your partners even to a small extent…Your weakness needs to be known, no matter if it is temporary or has always been there…" He said quietly.  
She turned around, looking back at him "I have always held my pain to myself I have never had the need to tell other people my problems, and I don't think I will ever have that need."  
"You never know, things change throughout time…" was his only reply, as he walked out of the door.  
"Airi, are you well enough to go to the room that has been set up for you, yeah?"  
"Yes, I am fine, now."  
"Good then follow me, please, un." He said showing her to the door and walked out after her.  
Airi followed him as he went down some stairs down a hallway on their right, at the end was another stairway which they went down again and then down the right hallway again, every door that they passed along the way had kanji on them each looked different. One looked like it was the kanji for void, another down the hall said southern star, beside it was vermillion bird, and several others.  
"Deidara, what is the kanji on the doors for?"  
"They show whose room is whose, they match the rings that we get, like mine is blue-green, see." He said showing her his ring, and then showed her a door with the matching kanji written on it.  
"Oh cool, but I didn't get a ring…."  
"Yeah, well there was only ten rings made, and right now they are all in use, so you and Zenzuro get some spare rooms."  
"Oh okay." she said remaining silent now, as Deidara continued to lead her to the rooms.  
Finally he came to a stop in front of a plain door that didn't look like it had been used in a while; she could hear noise coming form the one beside hers though and looked at Deidara confused.  
"It's probably Zenzuro…" he answered opening the door of her room.  
The room was simple, there wasn't too much too it, it had a mattress with black and red blankets, a book case, a dresser and a good sized closet, their also was a window with stairs beside it leading to the roof, it had a beautiful view even though it was rainy outside. She opened it and put her hand out the window, feeling the rain, a breeze began to come in through the open window, leaving her skin pale from the cold. She withdrew her hand and Deidara closed the window.  
"Don't freeze yourself to death first thing, un." He said chuckling slightly.  
"Fine…"she said letting herself fall onto her bed, she immediately began to curl up against the blankets, leaving Deidara to show himself out of the room, but first he clipped a small necklace around her neck with some difficulty, but he managed it.

"Airi, I know you are in there, you haven't been out since Deidara showed you there this morning." A voice said irritated, waking Airi up immediately.  
"Who is it?"  
"Sasori, can I come in?"  
"Sure, go ahead, I was just resting…" She watched him open the door; he was out of Hiroku this time. She could see that he looked the same as he did when he left the clan, which surprised her, but she didn't care. He had his dark dusty red hair and eyes that looked strangely more unemotional than ever before.  
"Airi, let me see your puppets Ikari and Hiai, or should I say MY puppets, I would like to see how much the clan tried to alter it, because I'm sure that they didn't leave it the same after I left. They probably thought that there were remnants of 'evil' left on it, so they probably changed as much of it as they could, so you wouldn't turn out the same way." Airi nodded pulling two scrolls out of her side pouch and channeled chakra through it. There was a cloud of smoke and shadows swept throughout the room, and it cleared to show a pair of wolf puppets. Ikari was black with a pair of blood red eyes, while Hiai had glowing silver eyes and a silver tip on the end of its tail, they both had metal enforced fang that had obviously dipped in poison.  
Sasori got closer to them to see there foundation and to see how much had been effected on the outside, right then they began to circle around him, their eyes although pupil less showed only one emotion, hunger for the kill. He looked up to see chakra strings channeling back up to Airi's hands, and her fingers twitching ever so slightly, he narrowed his eyes and stared at the strings a little harder, no they weren't entirely chakra, he could see that it consisted of shadows too.  
"Who taught you puppetry?" He asked, wondering how she learned such advanced levels of puppetry.  
"I learned some from Chiyo-baa-sama, you taught me some and the rest I learned on my own, like a lot of other things."  
"And who taught you to use shadows as chakra strings?"  
"I did, after I learned that I could control them to begin with I started to test it for the same use of chakra strings, no one would suspect an animal if it didn't have visible chakra strings, would they?"  
"I suppose being stuck in the clan taught you a few things then….leave them here, I will fix them up for you so that they will be in better condition then what my clan left them in, even though you did a good job at adding more things to them to replace the weapons taken."  
"Leave them where, are you going somewhere??"  
"No Airi, you are going on your first mission, with Zenzuro. Don't allow yourself to become extra weight that needs to be carried, you need to do your own work as well as he, no matter if you get along or not."  
"Deidara told you then? What happened yesterday I mean."  
"He did, now go you need to head off to Pein's room. Go left, up the stairs, go through the left hallway again, and then up the stairs and down the hall to the double doors, the clinic and his room is on the same floor so it is the same directions."  
"Right, thank you nii-chan." she said leaving the room and following his instructions.

She entered the room, after having heard Pein allow her entrance.  
"Airi, I see you've made it without getting too lost."  
"Yes, sir." she said looking around she saw Zenzuro already standing there looking at her.  
'You and Zenzuro will be sent to Konohagakure for a simple spying mission, seeing as the fight you had with Itachi seemed to have killed you, even for a few minutes, but you do well, and you were able to last for the most part after being stuck in his Tsukuyomi, he said you were able to dispel it almost fully, which there is rarely someone who can do that alone without the help of another."  
"Yes sir. Anything or anyone in particular that we to be spying on?"  
"Yes, you're mission is to spy on Kyuubi's jinnchuriki, Uzumaki Naruto. It would help if you two were able to befriend him enough to allow him to give you information willingly, otherwise it will be hard to gain his trust later on when we raid the village to get him, and he may resist and release Kyuubi who will attack to get away. Understand?"  
"Yes sir. When do we leave?"  
"As soon as you are ready." was his reply as she and Zenzuro left the room silently.  
"How long will it take for you to get ready?" Zenzuro asked as they both walked down the stairs again to their rooms.  
"Very shortly, I don't have that much anyways."  
"Good, but remember we will probably be staying for at least a week, if not longer so remember to pack things that you'll need during that time."  
"I know, and I hate to say this but…you were right the other day, I should be able to trust you more because we have to trust the other just a bit for this to work out, but try to remember that I never really got along well with many people, mainly because of my clan…" she said mumbling the last part.  
"Don't worry about it but we need to get ready for our mission, right now we don't need to think of too much other than getting the mission done, other than that we'll figure out when we get to Konohagakure. Kay?" He asked as they neared their rooms.  
"Right, see you in a few minutes, I won't take to long." She said walking into her room.

Airi was waiting in between her and Zenzuro's doors; she was carrying a dark almost royal blue backpack that was hung around one of her shoulders and her neck. It was somewhat heavy but just barely, but then again it held several of her weapons that she couldn't fit in her side pouch. She closed her eyes for a moment, just waiting for him to finish up already. She knew she would take less time than a normal kunoichi but less than a ninja that knew they had to leave soon? It was kind of funny really that she, the new member, could get ready faster than someone who had been there for at least a good bit longer than her. She finally heard the door beside her open and close quietly and she opened one eye. Before her was a teenage boy with really dark hair with a few sandy streaks and forest green eyes. This boy was wearing a high collared jacket and tan shorts.  
"Zenzuro, you look like Sasuke Uchiha." she said pushing herself away from the wall, and she began to dig into her bag, but found that she had nothing that could help her with his outfit really except a black belt that had red gems around the top in the design of a cats thin agile figure, but that really wouldn't help a guy, much, still she handed it to him.  
He eyed it suspiciously, then looked up at her like what the heck are you giving this to me for?  
"Never mind, you think I should change my look too?" She asked as she took the belt back and stashed it in her bag.  
"Depends really, would they recognize you easily?"  
"I don't know, how many people do you know have bloody hair and eyes?"  
"Not many, so that means if you've caused problems there you just might need to change how you look."  
"Right…" She said doing the hand sign for tiger.  
A light mist began to form around her only for a few seconds though, but as it left, it left a completely changed Airi. She had black, grayish hair with red streaks with slightly varying shades, and she had glowing green eyes with dark black circles surrounding her pupils. She was still wearing the same thing she had been which was a midnight blue black tank top, with disconnected sleeves that were only connected by some fishnet it also had a hood, and a pair of slightly baggy pair of pants, but it was still wasn't in the way when they were running.  
"Hmmm, how's this??"  
"It will do."  
"Hey I just realized something…won't having headbands that show openly that we're rogues be obvious?"  
He was already pulling out a headband that were in his bag which was similar to her own; he finally got what he was trying to and tossed it to her. She flipped it over to see which one it was. The insignia was unfamiliar to her.  
"What village is this from?"  
"It's from Kuragakure. The village hidden in darkness, although it isn't around anymore, Orochimaru destroyed it years ago…"  
"This is the same symbol you had on yours before, was that your home village?"  
"It was…"  
"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to bring up past memories…"  
"Don't worry about it, plus its good for missions, because very few no that it was ruined years ago and no one has seen too many of them so I don't honestly have to hide too much."  
"Right, that makes sense…"she said tying it around her neck and pulling up her hood, waiting for him to start off first so that she would know where it was good to start their trek to Konohagakure, and where it would just look like that they were making trouble. They walked at a slow pace until both of them made it out of Amegakure's gates, then Zenzuro jumped into the trees followed closely by Airi, they jumped from tree branch to tree branch in a perfect beat and that was the main thing they heard for a long time.

"We should stop now, it will take about another half day to get to the village gates and even if we did get there tonight we'd have to find a place to stay."  
"I don't know, It shouldn't be too hard to make that last bit before it's officially too late."  
"No, we don't need to push ourselves too hard already when we only got this mission a several hours ago. Plus we are far enough away from any villages to be attacked by anbu suddenly unless there is someone they are running after and they just happen to come this way."  
"Fine…I really think that we should go on just a bit further but I guess you're right." she said knowing that she should listen to him seeing as he had been in the Akatsuki longer and was considered her superior, but she really didn't want to stop just yet, oh well that's the problem with receiving missions halfway through the day.  
She jumped high up into a tree, just staring up into the night sky; the memories that Itachi dislodged from their hidden places came flooding back into her mind, back to the surface where she had hoped that she had banished them from.  
She could feel her loneliness coming back again, because she was alone in her pain, and nothing could stop it from its slow and painful killing sensation it had on her. She flipped a kunai around her finger letting it hit her knee lightly every time that it went around, making small scratches on her leg, her soul was already crying, but as she was getting ready to stab herself in the palm to relieve the pain that was affecting her mind, a hand grabbed her wrist stopping her short of hitting herself with the kunai.  
"What are you doing?!" Zenzuro asked angrily sitting beside her now.  
"What does it look like?!" She said tears staining her cheeks as she nearly yelled at him. He yanked the kunai out of her grasp, and throwing it down into the pile of stuff that was leaning against the trees base below them. "What I do is not your problem." she said crying silently now, hiding her face from him, not wanting him to see her this weak. Sure he saw her weak from and injury but to show him how weak she was emotionally, to show him how unstable she was, even though she barely knew him, it was too much.  
"What's wrong? Why are you going so far as to cut yourself?" He asked, worry written on his face.  
"It's nothing..."  
"Airi, like I said you can't lie very good especially to your partner."  
"It's nothing, trust me for once, this is my business…I'll let you know if it comes to that, but for now it's my problems, this one is."  
"…Okay…but if this happens again, then I wont stop asking until I get answers." he said meaning the tears and her trying to cut herself. "Good night, Airi." He said as he dropped to lower branches that could hold his weight better so he didn't have to worry about it in the middle of the night.  
"Night, Zen." she said, as she curled up right there in the high branches settled inside a good sized indent created by two branches.

"Zen, get up we need to get moving now, we've taken enough time by staying in one place for the night." Airi called as she shook him almost thinking about pushing him out of the trees, but that might cause more problems than help them. Instead she went looking for some waterway, a little stream or a river, which is what she found not far away, she created a bowl of shadows and scooped some water into it.  
She began walking back to her sleeping partner; as soon as she got close enough so that she wouldn't miss hitting him yet still far enough that she could run away she tossed the whole thing, bowl and all.  
Zenzuro shot up almost instantly, looking for the one who threw it immediately, and she began to run back towards the small river and pulled a reed then dived into the river. She used the reed as a way to breathe while underneath the water. She felt arms circling around her as she struggled to get away but she was dragged up into the air, staring her annoyed partner in the eye. She spit the reed out, and let out a sound that almost sounded like a whimper.  
"Hey I tried to get you up the easy way but you were almost like dead asleep, and if it helps I'm wet now too."  
"Nice try getting out of it." He said smirking still holding her up in the air.  
Airi could feel another memory come up and she tried to push it away but failed, it was herself younger in the same position almost.  
She had gotten her cousin mad and he had her lifted by the collar of her shirt and then he punched her in the chest and kicked her in the stomach.  
This made her give a slight whimper at the smirk Zenzuro was giving her, like he was going to pay her back harshly. This made his expression change entirely; he could almost see the fear in her eyes.  
"What's the matter? I wasn't going to do anything that bad." He said, "But now you have to tell me what has got you acting like this."  
"Nothing, like I said you'll know soon enough, plus it was just an old memory that came up in my thoughts. Now we need to get moving…we need to reach Konohagakure soon and get started on this mission."  
He nodded, and let go of her, letting her drop right back into the water.  
"Aww, come on Zen! You suck, you know that!" she yelled pulling herself out of the water, now she was very cold. She looked over to see that he had a small ball of fire held at a good distance from his clothes so that they would dry quicker but not get close enough to catch on fire. She saw him look at her and almost start to laugh.  
"Yeah, just keep on laughing, I will get you back for this…."she said noticing that she was shaking from being wet and the slight breeze that was passing through. She walked over to their stuff and pulled out a cloak she had in her bag, it wasn't the Akatsuki cloak because for one, she hadn't gotten one yet, and two, that would be a bit obvious.  
"Okay, are we ready to go now?" Zenzuro asked.  
"Yeah I am, are you?" she replied her bag already at her side, her grey hair still blackish from getting wet, but it was tied into a ponytail. her bangs still hanging in front of her face.  
"Right, I'm ready so let's get going." He said jumping suddenly into the trees and began jumping from branch to branch.


End file.
